Gwynn said, slowly: "I don't like the way he questioned me last night. Besides, a sovereign is too much even for an American."
"Very well. We've passage on the boat if necessary. I'll go out to Westheath anyway. If I don't care for what he is doing out there we can hold him on the dock."
"Another thing," mused Gwynn. "The Edmeston Agency may be quite all right, but the man's name is Grätz."
"He's been under scrutiny. He seems to be all right."
"All the same--his name is all wrong. What was that chauffeur's name?"
"He spells it without a _c_. I saw his signature on the Agency rolls."
"You'll find that his father spelled his name with a _c_," remarked Gwynn, gloomily. But Vane only laughed.
"I'm off," he said. "Stick around where I can get you on the telephone if necessary. But I don't think it will be necessary."
The journey was the usual one through interminable London streets alternately respectable and squalid; and straight ahead through equally interminable suburbs with their endless "terraces," semi-detached and detached villas, and here and there a fine old house behind neglected garden walls, making its last forlorn stand against the all-destroying inroad of the London jungle.
There had been a heavy haze in London, but no fog. In the country, however, beyond the last outstretched suburban tentacle of the inky octopus the morning sun glimmered low through a golden smother, promising a glimpse of blue sky.
To Guild, one "heath" has always resembled another, and now, as they passed through the country at high speed, there seemed to him very little difference between the several named points which marked his progress toward Westheath. Hedges alternated with ivy-covered walls on either side of a wide, fine road; trees were splendid as usual, sheep fat, cattle sleek. Here and there a common or heath glimmered bewitchingly where sunlight fell among the whins; birds winged their way, waters glimmered, and the clean, singing August wind of England blew steadily in his face strangely reviving within him some ancient, forgotten, pre-natal wistfulness. Maybe it came from his American mother's English mother.
Near two villages and once on the open highway policemen leisurely signalled the chauffeur to stop, and came sauntering around to the tonneau to question Guild as to his origin, his business, and his destination; quiet, dignified, civil, respectable men they seemed to be in their night cloaks and their always smart and business-like helmets and uniforms.